Who is looking out for the middle class?

Has everyone heard of the phrase “spending like a drunken sailor?” Please note that this is not meant to be offensive as I used to be one. Having a lot of experience in the field, we used to stop once we ran out of money. Unfortunately this experience provides no help when I try to understand the actions of President Obama.

As plainly as possible, this country has a spending problem and the Drunken-Sailor-in Chief is the biggest problem. The federal government has increased spending by more than 40 percent just in the past five years. What started out as temporary spending on TARP and the stimulus is now baked forever into the continuous stream of federal spending, and guess what, economic growth and job creation are still pitiful.

Over the next 10 years, the federal government is projected to spend 45 trillion dollars. In all the debate about the fiscal cliff and sequester, the president has considered spending cuts of less than 2 percent of this projected spending. How can we take him seriously? We learned a lot about the president’s beliefs when food stamp recipients increased by more than 50 percent in four years, and this was supposed to be during an economic recovery. Now we have the federal government feeding nearly 20 percent of its population each month. Apparently a lifetime of dependency on the federal government is what President Obama calls progress. This country needs jobs and opportunity, not handouts.

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And what about his treatment of the middle class? By now, we’ve all seen the effects of his 2 percent tax increase for social security. This was a $100 billion tax increase mostly on the middle class and working poor. How do you feel every time you fill up at the pump? Twenty-twelve was the highest average gas prices ever, and it’s gone up another $0.50/gallon this year. His policies take from the middle class every day, and yet cuts (to be more accurate, slowing the rate of growth) to the federal budget will somehow cause Armageddon. And is anyone surprised that the media savaged Bush when gas prices were rising, but all we get is silence when Obama is at the helm?

It’s embarrassing that he blames everyone but himself for the country’s financial problems. His “government first” attitude is punishing the middle class and ruining opportunity in this country.

Looking forward to more spirited discussions in the coming weeks, especially on the upcoming school board vote on the teacher’s union contract. It will be very interesting to see if the school board protects the people going to work every day to pay the bills, and not just protects government special interests as President Obama does.